Life’s Too Short to Stay Angry

Ever been angry? So angry that you could spend an hour or two ranting to yourself or loved ones (or on Facebook)?

Of course you have. We all get angry at times. It’s our body giving us a Status Update about something that happened that we didn’t like. About a thing in the past! So why do we stay angry then?

Well, it’s my belief we’ll stay angry until we Acknowledge the anger (“OK, thanks for letting me know, Anger”), Accept it (“Anger, you were indeed appropriate for what happened there”) and then Align our thoughts and actions with how we want to feel next (“Anger, it’s not you, it’s me. I’ve got a thing for Joy and we’re meeting up very soon …”).

Maybe you’ve held onto some anger for years about a particular thing or someone. What good is it doing you? If we consider it within the TMTWGR philosophy, there’s an “opportunity cost” to being Angry for a long period (what could you spend that time on instead?). So it kind of makes sense to Acknowledge, Accept and then Align with some new feeling instead, right?

Now I’m not saying you have to do that. It’s your call! But I like making use of the following couple of phrases I made up a few years ago: